


I’m trying to paint your face in my brain

by lovebeyondmeasure



Category: Leverage
Genre: Bodyguard Romance, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Happy Ending, Minor Canonical Character-centric, Mutual Pining, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebeyondmeasure/pseuds/lovebeyondmeasure
Summary: “Is this art show more important than not being kidnapped?” he asked. “I just wanna make sure you’re aware that that’s what you’re saying to me.”Amy blinked, then her famous Palavi resolve hardened. “My parents are coming. It’s the first time my dad will ever see my art. It really is that important.”“Alrighty then,” Hardison said. “Lemme see what we can cook up to let you go to your art show and also not get kidnapped. In that order.”Or, the time that none of the team was available to watch out for Amy Palavi, so they call in someone who's definitely not Eliot.
Relationships: Amy Palavi/Mr. Quinn
Comments: 26
Kudos: 121
Collections: 2019 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	I’m trying to paint your face in my brain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyjax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyjax/gifts).



> I absolutely cannot resist rarepairs. I hope this is an enjoyable gift for you, ladyjax, because it was a labor of love.
> 
> My deepest thanks to my beta Vita_Sine_Fantasy_Mors_Est, for being an invaluable sounding board, as well as Lindsey and Bethany, for their help and encouragement, and to all the writers in my group for the cheering, the commiseration, the sprints and the support. Love you, each and every one.
> 
> This fic contains very few triggers, but does have one slightly-tipsy kiss in which all parties consent fully and involves an unpleasant scene with a disapproving parent. For more details, please see the end note. I hope this does not detract from anyone's enjoyment of the fic.
> 
> A final note: the title of this fic is from [Killer Whales by Smallpools](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSJtjPi8CcY) [[lyrics]](https://azlyrics.com/lyrics/smallpools/killerwhales.html), and it was written in large part while playing [I Wanna Love You by Just Friends](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6te_5Q4-ipg) on repeat. Both songs are thematically linked to this piece, as well as being well worth the listen.
> 
> Happy Everything, ladyjax!

“Okay, I get that part, but that still doesn’t explain why I need to leave town.”

Parker threw up her hands. “What about ‘a bunch of bad guys are after you’ doesn’t make sense?”

Amy rolled her eyes, half fond, half exasperated. “I understand the words, Parker, but I need more to go on. All you keep saying is that bad guys are after me. Why me? What do they want? What is going _on?_ ”

Hardison stepped into the room. “She’s being inscrutable again, isn’t she? Sorry, Amy. We can’t tell you more than that right now, for your own safety.”

“What’s wrong with being inscrutable?” Parker muttered. “I _like_ being inscrutable.”

Hardison leaned over to kiss Parker’s cheek. Amy glanced away to give her boss some privacy. 

“I know you like being inscrutable, babe, but you gotta admit it’s not easy on everyone else,” Hardison said, not without love. 

Parker huffed and folded her arms tight to her chest. “Maybe you can explain it better than me, then, because she won’t listen to me when I tell her she’s in _danger_ and I can’t protect her!”

“Hello,” Amy said, waving a hand to get the pair’s attention. “I’m right here, thanks. And I understand that bad people might target me sometimes, because it’s already happened, sure, but why now? And how do you even know about this?”

“We- we know about this because-” Hardison sputtered, clearly trying to come up with a reason beyond the usual crime-related ones. “Because we’re-”

“We found out because the people who’re after you are connected to the bad guy we’re taking down right now,” Parker said, with a smile that showed all her teeth. It reminded Amy of a mountain lion, somehow. Not as scary on the outset as a lion (Eliot) or a panther (Hardison), so you might forget that it’s just as capable of killing you. 

“Oh,” Amy said. “That makes sense. And don’t tell me more than that, please. You know I support your Robin Hood thing, but that doesn’t mean I wanna be actively complicit, if that makes sense.” She made a face, confused by her own wording.

Hardison gave her a thumbs up. “You got it, Ames. And I promise we’ll keep you in the loop as much as possible. All we’re asking is that you trust us to keep you safe.”

Amy mulled this over for a moment. “Alright,” she conceded. “I trust you guys. But I’m not going back to my parents, I don’t care what’s going on.”

She didn’t want to explain to them about the current family drama, which for once centered around her sister and not herself, but suffice to say Amy had absolutely no intention of putting herself into the middle of it. She’d rather be kidnapped again than try to mediate her family’s disputes. 

“Well,” Hardison said, “I was looking into some things you could do, and I found this cool artist-in-residence program in California that seemed really great. It’s six weeks, all-inclusive, with an on-site spa and—”

“Hold up, rewind,” Amy said. “Six _weeks?_ ”

“It’s for your own safety,” Hardison said. “And besides, this place looks amazing, they have this huge A/V room that’s got totally top-of-the-line—”

“You didn’t say it was going to be for that long,” Amy said. “A week, I could do, even two. But I have bills to pay, and my art show is coming up. I can’t leave town for six weeks. It’s not gonna happen.”

“Your art show!” Parker said. “I’m looking forward to that! And I already promised not to steal anything.”

This last was aimed at Hardison, who sighed, affectionate but longsuffering.

“Is this art show more important than not being kidnapped?” he asked. “I just wanna make sure you’re aware that that’s what you’re saying to me.”

Amy blinked, then her famous Palavi resolve hardened. “My parents are coming. It’s the first time my dad will ever see my art. It really is that important.”

“Alrighty then,” Hardison said. “Lemme see what we can cook up to let you go to your art show and also not get kidnapped. In that order.”

“Hang on,” Parker said, leaning in. “Did you say your parents are coming to town?”

* * *

Getting off the plane, Quinn scanned the crowd for a familiar head of brown hair. Eliot was waiting at his gate, and they made eye contact with a nod. 

Falling into step, Quinn skipped a greeting in favor of, “So what’s the deal? You weren’t heavy on the details on the phone, not that that’s anything new.”

“It’s basically a vacation. Five weeks with all expenses paid, high five figures, up to six if you end up earning it.”

“Earning it how?” Quinn asked. Eliot’s eyebrow quirked, and Quinn snorted. “The usual way, got it.”

“Kind of. I’ll explain in the car.”

* * *

“You want me to _what?_ ”

“Pretend to date a guy so he can be your bodyguard,” Parker repeated. “Am I not making sense? I can switch to French, or ooh! Hardison’s been teaching me Pig Latin, uh, tend-pray oo-tay ate-day—”

“Just like, a guy? Any guy?”

“No, silly,” Parker said, “we’ll provide the guy. You just have to pretend to date him.”

Amy shook her head. “Things are always weird with you guys, which normally I like! Normally you tell me to… to look sadly out a window and then you take down some guy with a Ponzi scheme or something! But this time, I’m basically being dropped into the plot of a grocery store romance novel, so give me a sec, okay?”

“They sell books at the grocery store?” Parker asked. Amy had to smile at her friend, who was surprised by the funniest things. 

Hardison popped his head in. “Eliot’s on his way back from the airport now, they’ll be here in a minute.”

“Thanks, babe!” Parker said. “Wait, anks-thay abe-bay!”

Hardison’s proud grin was blinding. 

“Who’s going to be here soon?” Amy asked his retreating back, before turning back to Parker. “Why won’t any of you answer my questions?”

Parker chose this last to respond to. “We’re not in the answers business, Amy. We provide _leverage._ ”

“That’s not an answer either!” Amy said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. 

“Yep!” Parker hopped up to make her patented Cryptic Mastermind Exit, leaving Amy to sigh and flop back into the couch. She loved Parker, truly, because Parker was a very good friend, but she was also basically a steamroller sometimes. 

“I don’t know how this happened to me,” she said to the ceiling. 

Out of her sight, she could hear the door open, and footsteps. 

“How what happened?” an unfamiliar voice asked. It was arch, but somehow good-humored. And male. 

Amy decided she wasn’t going to freak out, was definitely not freaking out, no sir, and stayed where she was on the couch. “All of this. My best friend is a criminal mastermind, and my boss is a hacker who, like, topples governments from behind a keyboard.”

Eliot’s footsteps were familiar as they came around the couch, and Amy moved over so he could sit on what she knew was His End. 

“What about me?” he asked, reclining with his hands behind his head. It made the muscles in his arms ripple and flex. 

“You’re the scariest man I have ever met,” she said, looking over at the head chef. “And I’ve met dictators.”

“So have I, and you’re right,” the new voice said, coming into her line of vision. “She’s smart, I’ll give you that.”

“I’m right here,” Amy said, evaluating the new guy. He was wearing a suit, and his hair was curly, and his face was… good. There was something about him that reminded her of a big cat, like the rest of her criminal friends— relaxed, but with a latent tension that gave him the air of someone who would definitely win in a fight. She wondered what kind he should be.

“I’m Quinn,” he said easily, extending a hand to shake. Amy pulled herself upright and took it, surprised by how nice his handshake was. She was used to big, handsome guys having handshakes that were too tight, or damp, or a power play. Quinn’s handshake was cool and dry and his fingers were gentle against hers. 

“Amy,” she said. 

“No last name?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her before looking over at Eliot. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, playing it as cool as she could manage. Nope, see, not freaking out!

“I like her,” Quinn said to Eliot. “I’ll take the gig.”

That was the piece Amy had been missing. The lightbulb went on.

“This is the guy you’re providing?” she asked. “The one I’m— who’s— the one who’s going be my bodyguard?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Quinn said easily. Amy looked up at him, taking him in bit by bit. Well, he was certainly handsome enough to please her mother. Good handshake. A little rude, but there was something about the curl of his lip that made her fingers itch for a pencil. Yeah, okay.

“What’s in it for you?” she asked, trying to not let her nerves show. If he had some kind of idea of how this was going to play out that involved her in any way, especially in some sort of… naked way, she’d be out the door in a heartbeat.

“Money,” Quinn answered easily. “Plus, compared to what I usually do, this is practically a vacation. Bodyguarding a waitress? Are you kidding? I put this trip in my calendar as PTO.”

“And the whole dating aspect isn’t, like, weird to you, or anything?”

Because it was weird to her. Of course she’d seen it in movies, read it in books, but the idea of pretending to be in a relationship with someone who was actually her bodyguard sounded like something out of a fanfiction that her younger sister would write. 

“I mean, it’s actually more common than you’d think,” Quinn said, folding himself into one of the armchairs beside the couch. “I get that kind of contract often enough, usually for an event, or maybe a day or two. I guess I have a reputation as arm candy.”

He gave her a grin that was clearly supposed to be charming, and Amy could admit to herself that she might be a little charmed. Just a little. Not that should would admit it to anyone else.

“So how does this work?” she asked, turning to Eliot. Eliot, she knew. Amy not only trusted Eliot, she was pretty sure he could filet this Quinn guy with any of the knives in the kitchen, and would probably show Amy how if she asked. 

“There’s a couple ways to go about it,” Eliot said. He’d been watching them, and he had that evaluative look in his eye that Amy usually associated with him sizing up ingredients. “But here’s what I think will work best for you two.”

* * *

“Stop flinching,” Quinn said through his teeth. “You’re never gonna convince anyone I’m your boyfriend if you freak out every time I touch you.”

“I can’t help it,” Amy muttered back, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm. “You’re so quiet, you always surprise me.”

Quinn looked… gratified? Amy liked the way just the corner of his mouth quirked upward. She’d probably sketch it later.

“I’ll try to make more noise,” he said, not an apology, but she’d take it. They strolled along the mall, window-shopping past the Land’s End and the FYE, the siren smell of the Cinnabon reeling Amy in. 

“Buy me some cinnabon?” she asked, slowing as they approached the stand.

“Why should I?” Quinn asked, already reaching for his wallet.

“For one thing, if you were really my boyfriend, you’d know that Cinnabon is one of my favorite things in the world. And also, I’m a broke waitress, and you do expensive crimes and stuff. You’re definitely the one with the money here,” she said, surprising herself by how flirty that came out. 

“I know your family has money,” he said as they joined the queue. “Or else I wouldn’t be here, letting you talk me into buying disgustingly sweet junk.”

“Ah, sure, they do,” Amy said, closing her eyes as she inhaled the smell of pure cinnamon-sugar goo. “But that’s my family, not me. I’m pretty much cut off until I agree to go back to grad school for my MBA.”

“And you’re against it enough to turn down the family fortune,” Quinn said, looking at her face as though he was trying to get a read on her. “Congratulations on your principles.”

“Not my principles,” Amy said. “More like… if I do an MBA and follow my dad’s whole life plan for me, I’ll be miserable. I’ve watched him do it for my whole life, you know? I know it’s not for me. I’d rather be broke and happy.”

“Huh,” Quinn said. “Personally, I enjoy luxury.”

“Mm, luxury can be nice,” Amy said. “But you know what I love?”

Quinn looked from Amy to the menu. “Cinnabon?”

“Yup,” she said. “Cinnabon.”

They were nearly to the front of the line now, and Amy knew exactly what she wanted. 

“What can I get you,” the bored teenager at the register said. Quinn waved her forward. 

“Can I have a Center of the Roll and a medium MochaLatta Chill,” she said immediately, then glanced at her bodyguard and made a snap decision. “And a small hot coffee, black.”

The cashier repeated back her order and took Quinn’s credit card, which Amy knew for a fact had been handed to him the day before by Hardison. She could tell by the design of a coiled Chinese-style dragon on the front, which was a very Hardison touch that Quinn had grimaced at.

They stepped off to the side to await their order, and Quinn stepped into her personal space, just a little closer than she would have preferred to have a guy she met three days ago. 

“Why’d you order me a hot coffee?” he asked. “How do you know I don’t prefer one of those iced... whatevers?”

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “Your hands are cold,” she said. “I figured you probably like warm beverages. And you don’t like sugar, you just said so yourself.”

Amy wondered if she was imagining the way Quinn was looking at her as she took the tray with their order from the counter. As though he respected her a bit more. Like he liked what he saw. 

She sat down at one of the tiny cafe tables for two and dug into the gooey, warm roll with her fingers. Quinn sat across from her, eyebrows raised.

“You’re making a mess,” he said conversationally as he stirred a single creamer into his coffee. 

“Mm-hmm,” Amy replied. She swallowed her mouthful and said, “That’s the whole point of Cinnabon, Quinn. If you don’t leave sticky and satisfied, you’re doing it wrong.”

He snorted, and Amy realized too late how that sentence could be taken. She’d known this guy for like five minutes, and now this? She could feel the tops of her ears going hot, but decided to brazen it out, taking another bite of her roll and meeting his eye for a long moment. She wasn’t freaking out, not even a little. She was tough. She could handle it.

“Fair enough,” Quinn said, sipping his coffee. Amy, focusing on her roll, missed the way his eyes tracked her mouth as she licked some icing off her fingers.

* * *

The first few days were relaxing, but by the end of the first week, Quinn felt like he was about to ricochet off a wall. He tried to focus on sniper breathing, but couldn’t empty his mind.

“Will you chill out?” Amy hissed at him as she set a bowl of chili on his table. “You’re glaring at me. One of my regulars asked me if I was okay, and pointed at you. You look like _you’re_ the one planning to kill me.”

“Dammit,” Quinn muttered. “Sorry, Amy. I’m just…”

“Bored,” she supplied. “Yeah, I figured. Well, my life is boring. Don’t know what else to tell you. Pick up a hobby or something. Go to the gym. What do you normally do when you’re on a job?”

 _Drink. Go to the firing range. Flirt with women. Come up with contingency plans A through G, then contingency plans for those plans. Practice knifework. Shoot some actual people. Get paid._

“I’m usually busier than this,” he lied, just a little bit. Amy had pulled out her order pad and was scribbling on it, and he appreciated the way she was providing their conversation with some sort of cover. It was a nice touch.

“Hmm,” she said, not looking like she totally believed him. “Sure. I’ll be right back with that.”

Quinn blinked at her non-sequitur, then shrugged and picked up his spoon. He might be bored, but Eliot made a mean bowl of chili, and he hadn’t been raised to let good food go to waste.

About fifteen minutes later, Amy came back over and set a tray down in front of him. 

“What’s this?” he asked softly. 

“Fresh tater tots with garlic black truffle aioli,” she said, pointing, “and a tablet loaded with every streaming service known to man. Plus some earbuds. Knock yourself out.”

Quinn looked up at her. “If I’m watching some shitty TV show, I won’t be able to watch over you.”

Amy rolled her eyes at him. “I’m literally surrounded by cameras. Anything that happens in here, Hardison or Parker or Eliot will know in three minutes or less. This brewpub is the safest place for me in the whole city. I’ll be fine if you get caught up on Say Yes to the Dress or whatever.”

“What the fuck is Say Yes to the Dress?” He looked up at her, baffled.

“It’s a wedding show where some girl goes to find the overpriced white monstrosity of her dreams, and her maid of honor is a jerk and her mom cries. You know.” Amy shrugged.

Quinn didn’t bother to bite back his grin. “No, I really don’t.”

Amy looked at him silently for a moment. It wasn’t that his grin _faltered,_ but it was a little disconcerting to not get any reaction at all to it. 

“Well, now’s your chance to find out, I guess,” she said after a beat. “Wave me down if you need anything, I have to go get extra napkins for table five. And eat those tots, they’re new and Eliot wants feedback.”

Quinn watched Amy as she walks away, and if he appreciated the sway of her hips, well. He was supposed to be her boyfriend, wasn’t he? It would be weird if he _didn’t_ appreciate them.

He opened the tablet and searched `Say Yes to the Dress` because… Just because, that’s all.

* * *

“Hey man, how’s it going?” Eliot greeted Quinn as he strolled into the back room. 

“It’s all good,” Quinn replied, his usual charm turned on. “Have you seen Amy back here? I’m supposed to take her over to the gallery tonight, Parker said she saw the surveillance team again.”

“Yeah, she’s upstairs with Hardison. He's getting her set up with some tracking stuff she can wear, just in case.”

Quinn stretched out on the couch, putting his feet up before Eliot glared at him. 

“No feet on the furniture,” he said flatly.

“I have definitely seen Parker put her feet on this couch.”

“You’re not Parker,” Eliot said in that low voice, and Quinn decided that he could deal with keeping his feet on the floor. You didn’t last long as a hitter without having a healthy sense of self-preservation.

Quinn sat for a moment, trying to think of something to say. He could still hear the crunch of Eliot’s broken rib from the first time they’d fought, and he had a feeling that Eliot could hear it too. They respected each other, could like each other maybe, but Quinn had a sense that if anything happened to Amy on his watch, Eliot would have no problem meting it back out to Quinn tenfold. They had an affinity, but Eliot had adopted Amy into his circle, and Quinn couldn’t complete with that. 

“Hey, Amy gave me some of those tater tots, with the fancy mayo?” Quinn said, remembering what Amy had said a few days before. 

“The garlic black truffle aioli?” Eliot asked.

“Yeah, that,” Quinn said. “Not really what I was expecting from you, and it’s kind of a pretentious meal for a brewpub, but damn, that black truffle was killer.”

“It really adds that complexity that the aioli needs,” Eliot said, and Quinn had never seen him get so passionate about anything. He was gesturing, “See, because the tater tots are so simple, just a classic delivery system, you can get really interesting with the dip, and I just thought, y’know, a rich aioli would be so versatile—”

Quinn nodded along, fascinated despite himself at how a man who had always seemed most at home while breaking bones was actually even more passionate about, like, balancing textures and other cooking shit. 

“Eliot!” Parker’s voice came echoing down through the air vent. “Can you get Quinn? Amy’s almost done, and Hardison wants Quinn next!”

“Yeah, I got’im right here!” Eliot called back. “Alright, time for you to get off my property. See you in a couple days.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked as he got up and stretched. 

“It’s Amy’s weekend,” Eliot said, tilting his head back to squint at Quinn. “Are you not paying attention?”

“I’m paying attention to everything,” Quinn said defensively. “But tomorrow’s Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said. “She gets Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. And she’s been stuck here every day for a week. So do whatever she wants for the next couple days.”

Quinn’s face must have seemed reluctant, because Eliot’s brow furrowed. 

“Got something to say about that?”

“No,” Quinn said. Well, he had been getting pretty stir crazy. 

“Good. Because I just wanna remind you that the whole point of paying you to come in and watch out for Amy was so that she can still live her normal life, and if you’ve got a problem with making sure that happens—”

Quinn made his exit as gracefully as possible. “Nope, no problem, whatever the lady wants she shall have, see you in two days, bye!” 

Amy intercepted him by the back door out to the alley. “You okay? You’re looking a little pale.”

He summoned his trademark grin. “Yep, I’m all good. I think I’m losing my color because I’ve been cooped up indoors for too long. Let’s do something outside tomorrow.”

Amy’s lip slipped out into a tiny pout, and Quinn was absolutely positive he should not find it as endearing as he did. 

“Listen, unlike you, I do not spend all day sitting at a table, being brought free food. I’m on my feet all day.” Amy shrugged on her coat, and Quinn grabbed the door for her. “The last thing I want to do is go wandering around in nature, or jumping off a cliff, or whatever it is you do for fun.” 

Well, there went his thought of taking her to the firing range and teaching her a few things. 

“I just wanna sit and not do anything that involves work tomorrow, okay?”

Quinn scuffed his foot as he fell into step beside her, allowing her to slip her hand into the crook of his elbow as had become her habit. She seemed to dislike holding hands, so that was an easy way for them to stay in contact. At least, that’s what he would have said if asked. Which he hadn’t been. Yet. But if someone asked, he was ready.

“That’s fine,” he said. “But if I have an idea, will you go along with it?”

She looked up at him as they stopped at a crosswalk. He wondered what she was looking for in his face. 

“Maybe,” she said, as they stepped out into the road. “We’ll see. Maybe Wednesday.”

* * *

They ended up spending most of the next day in Amy’s tiny one-bedroom apartment, because as it turns out, being monitored by unknown dangerous forces doesn’t halt the need to do laundry. 

“You’re killing me, Amy,” Quinn said, flopped bonelessly across her secondhand couch. “I’ve survived a lot of attempts to kill me. Like, a _lot._ But you’re gonna be the one to manage it. Congratulations.”

“Wow, drama queen,” Amy said as she dropped her laundry basket on the floor. “Go, I don’t know, do jiu jitsu or something.”

“I can’t leave you here by yourself,” Quinn said, lolling his head over to look at her. “This is literally the prime location to try something. This building has zero security and you live alone.”

Amy shoved at his legs so that she could join him on the couch. She no longer flinched away from him, mainly because there was no point. He was there, all the time, and his body had become sort of a fixture of her life— always present, somewhere in the room. 

“If that was true,” she said, pulling out a shirt to fold, “then why aren’t you sleeping on my floor or whatever? Every night you walk me to my door and leave.”

He sighed, nudging her with his foot. She ignored him and laid the folded shirt on his leg. 

“I’m staying on the floor right above you,” he said.

“You’re _what?_ ” Amy asked, her voice rising half an octave. Not freaking out, not freaking out, not freaking out… 

He looked pleased to have surprised her. “They have me upstairs. They convinced the tenant to sublet it to me, so I’m right there. Plus, this place is bugged like you wouldn’t believe.”

Amy glanced around. “Oh, I’d believe it. Parker probably did it while I was at work.” She folded another shirt and laid it atop the first. 

Quinn was looking at her again. She didn’t look back, and picked up a pair of socks to bundle together.

“I thought you’d be more freaked out,” he said finally.

“What, are you disappointed?” Amy asked. Another successful not-a-freakout.

Quinn glanced away. “Maybe.”

She tossed the pair of socks at his face and was gratified when they connected and bounced off. 

“Well maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

The look he gave her was sardonic in the extreme. “I spend all your waking hours either with you or in earshot of you. I know you like your coffee too sweet and you eat oatmeal for breakfast every day. I know you use detergent that smells like a garden threw up on you and you carry a notebook with you everywhere you go, and you won’t let me look at it.”

“Hey!” she said, tossing her next pair of socks at his face. This time he caught them. “I happen to like flowers.”

“Yeah, I think I noticed,” Quinn said, quirking his eyebrow at her, still holding the socks. He took a theatrical sniff of them and grimaced.

Amy smoothed a pair of leggings over her lap and brought up something she’d been thinking about for a few days. 

“You know all this stuff about me,” she said, carefully folding the leggings in half. “But you never share anything about yourself. If I’m going to convince people that you’re my boyfriend, I have to have something to tell them other than ‘his name is Quinn and he likes his coffee black’ before they start wondering if you’re in Witness Protection or something.”

The muscles of his leg flexed where they were pressed against hers, but he didn’t show anything on his face other than the blandly amused expression that seemed to be his default. 

“What kind of things do you want to tell them?”

Amy shrugged, setting the leggings on the arm of the couch. “I don’t know. How we met, what we do on dates, the kind of stuff people in real relationships talk about. I mean, I don’t even know your last name.”

He poked her with his foot. “How do you know Quinn isn’t my last name? Maybe I have a secret _first_ name.”

“Is it a secret?” Amy asked, turning to press her back against the arm of the couch and hoisting her legs up into a comfortable lotus position. “Your name?”

Quinn looked as though he had been caught, just a little. “No,” he said. “It’s not a secret. I just don’t tell people.”

Amy wrinkled her nose. “That sounds kind of like a secret to me.”

“Well, it’s not like people in my line of work have W-2s, or whatever,” he drawled, making her snort.

“Yeah, I was wondering. How do you keep from getting Caponed?”

Now Quinn hauled himself upright, mirroring her position against his arm of the couch and moving the folded piles of her laundry to the back. “You want to get to know me, so you ask how I avoid going to jail for tax fraud? You really are something.”

Amy smiled, just a twist of her lips. “Actually, it’s the kind of thing my dad would be proud of me for asking. He loves it when people get away with tax fraud. He’s not the kind of guy who loves the government.”

“Honey, I don’t know if you’ve met your employers,” Quinn said, “but I don’t think they love the government, either.”

That pulled a real laugh out of her. “The brewpub is completely above-board, I’ll have you know. I’m pretty sure Hardison uses it to launder money, actually; last year when I filed my taxes, I realized I was making way more in tips than I should have.”

“And that didn’t bother you?” Quinn looked more interested than she would have expected. 

“Well,” Amy said, taking her time. She didn’t want to misspeak, not with Quinn; he was the kind of guy who would scent blood in the water and come in for the kill. He was definitely a predator, through and through. “I know that he uses the money to help people, people who wouldn’t have gotten help otherwise. And that’s good. Plus, he did actually give me the money I was reporting as tips. So it’s not like I’m being shorted. I figured, if it’s a net gain for the world, then I don’t mind a little crime.”

This was what Hardison called “character growth.” It had taken Amy a few sleepless weeks before she had come to terms with her employer’s “real” job. But in the end, she’d been convinced: sometimes, bad guys make the best good guys. 

“Plus, I’ve never made such good money waitressing anywhere else,” Amy added. “It’s how I afford art supplies, and my own place. So I really can’t complain.”

Quinn laughed, and Amy wondered if it was the first time he’d ever done so in her presence. It was a little rusty, as though he wasn’t used to laughing in honest amusement.

“So underneath all the starry-eyed naivete is a pragmatist,” he said, and she liked the way he was looking at her, even if she wouldn’t admit it. “I knew you couldn’t be a goody-two-shoes all the way down.”

“Hey, I’m mostly a goody two shoes!” she said. “Kind of. But I guess I feel like… if you do the right things for the wrong reasons, they’re still the right things. And if you do the wrong things for the right reasons, you can be helped, you know? If you had good reasons? I want…”

She trailed off. It was weird. She didn’t know this guy’s whole name, but they were having the kind of conversation she really missed, the kind where you ask big, hard questions and still manage to laugh a little.

“You want?” Quinn prompted.

“I want the maximum amount of good for the maximum amount of people,” she said, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers. “And the team… you know, they help a lot of people. So if they do some, y’know, minor crimes to bad people, that’s okay, in the bigger scheme of things.”

Quinn’s foot pressed against hers, and she looked at him. “What if they do crime to not-so-bad people?” he asked, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. “Or they do it to help the bad people? Then what?”

Amy wondered if he knew how obvious he was being, with a question like that. But she liked him, against her own better judgement. Liked the way he was careful to make noise around her, the way he always tipped cash at the Cinnabon, the way he made her feel safe. The way his leg was pressed against her, warm and solid.

“I know that Eliot used to do the kind of work you do,” she said. “The hitter stuff. He tells stories, sometimes. It sounds like a hard life, and I think it can make people hard to live it. I think that being hard makes it easier to make those kind of choices, even if the person making the choice knows it’s not the right thing to do. But I don’t think that most people are irredeemable. I like to think that most people are pretty much decent, at heart.”

“And what if someone’s not?” he asked, not looking at her. He was running his fingertip slowly against his thumbnail, over and over. “Decent. Because some of… the guys out there, they’re bad, all the way through. They make the wrong call, for money, or for kicks, or just because it’s Tuesday.”

Amy shrugged, feeling out of her depth and over her head. But she couldn’t say nothing. “I think that if they know it’s the wrong call, then they still know right and wrong, and that’s a pretty good place to start.”

Quinn looked a little wondering, a little surprised. Amy liked him like this. He was… softer, less hard-edged. 

“I think I’m gonna bake some cookies,” she said, wanting a change of subject. “Do you want some?”

She was rewarded by a grin from her bodyguard. “I don’t think I could turn down fresh-baked cookies if you held a gun to my head,” he said. “What kind?”

“What kind do you like?” she asked, and Quinn narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Is this a ploy to find out things about me?” he asked.

Amy rolled her eyes at him as she got up. “Yeah, this is the kind of hard-hitting detective work that’ll win me the Pulitzer. Never mind his name, what kind of cookie does he like? No, Quinn, this is about whether or not you’ll eat raisins in an oatmeal cookie or not.”

The look of disgust on Quinn’s face made her giggle. 

“Raisins are the poorest imitation of chocolate chips. They _wish_ they were chocolate chips,” he said. “I mean, I’ll eat them, but I reserve the right to complain about it.”

“Fair enough,” Amy said. “I’ll do oatmeal chocolate chip, then. Walnuts?”

“ _Hell_ yeah,” Quinn said. 

“A man with taste,” she said, smiling at him. “Wanna help?”

“I only want to help if that’s code for licking the spoon,” Quinn said, following her around to her tiny galley kitchen. 

“I might make you sift the flour, too,” Amy said, tying on her apron. It was yellow and green, with daisies on it. “But you can definitely have dibs on the spoon.”

“I don’t know what sifting is, but if it’s the price I have to pay for cookies, so be it,” he said. “Do I get a frilly apron too, or are those only for professionals?”

She grinned at him over her shoulder. “I only have one, so you’ll just have to deal. Can you get down the flour from that cabinet above the stove?”

She guided him through the steps of her favorite recipe, pleased by how well he took directions from her, with a minimum of snarky commentary. As she was teaching him to sift flour, her hands atop his on the strainer, he looked up at her.

“My name,” he said abruptly, hands not stopping their work. She blinked. 

“Yes?” Amy replied, nonplussed.

“It’s— Quinn is my last name,” he said. 

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.” She let the silence rest between them, the flour shushing softly into the bowl. Then, unable to resist: “What’s your first name?”

He focused on the sifter in his hand, nearly empty now. “I don’t use it much these days.”

“Okay,” Amy said again, accepting that the topic was closed for the moment. There would be other moments. “Here, can you measure out the sugar when you’re done with that?”

Quinn looked relieved to be off the hook, and grabbed the sugar.

* * *

Wednesday, they went blessedly outside. Quinn had spent some time the day before some online reconnaissance— or, in layman’s terms, Googling. He had decided that what they really needed was a chance to walk around, and maybe get a better sense of Amy’s tail.

“Come on, it’s nice out, and I’ll buy you lunch,” he wheedled, shocked at how low he was sinking. (Not to mention how badly he found himself wanting to spend a way wandering this weird-ass town with this girl. No, seriously, don’t mention it. Ever.)

“Ugh, I just wanna lay on the couch,” Amy groaned, reclining on said piece of furniture. 

“We did that yesterday,” Quin pointed out. “Plus, Hardison gave me this dumb credit card, and I wanna see if he bothered to give me a credit limit.”

Amy looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Can we go to the art supply store?”

Quinn’s mouth curled into a satisfied smile. He had her now. “Of course we can,” he said smoothly, extending a hand. “Only the best for my girl.”

Once he had her out on the sidewalk, Amy slipped her hand into his elbow once more. 

“You know, it’s funny,” she said. “I hate spending Parker and Hardison’s money when they give it to me, but I’m not bothered by the idea of using the credit card to buy as much stuff as I can carry. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

Quinn shrugged. “I don’t think so. Plus, I think I’m being a corruptive influence on you.”

She smacked his shoulder, light and playful. “Don’t say that!”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Quinn said, grinning. “In fact, I’d say I’m enjoying it. You should be bad sometimes. It’s fun.”

“I don’t know, crime is more my dad’s thing,” Amy said. “Well, and obviously it’s Parker and Hardison and— oh my god. Oh my god!”

“What?” Quinn asked, worried by the look of horror on her face.

“I’m surrounded by criminals! All the time! My family and my friends are all doing crime all the time!” she said, looking up at him with realization writ large across her face. “How did this happen? I’m not— I spent last summer working with an orca rescue! How did this become my life?”

“Orcas? Like killer whales?” Quinn asked, partially just to distract her, partially to change the topic. If she kept going they were going to attract some looks, even in a town as strange as Portland. 

“Yeah, they’re often held in captivity in totally unsuitable conditions—”

Quinn listened with half an ear as Amy went on about the injustices done to killer whales. He was more interested in the guy in the dark green hoodie who was almost definitely tailing them. 

“That’s fascinating,” Quinn interrupted Amy, in a tone that totally gave lie to his words. “But I need you to go with me right now, okay?”

“Okay,” she said immediately. He liked that about her, the way she paid attention and took his cues. He hoped she’d do as well with the next thing. 

He took back his arm from her grip and wrapped it around her slim shoulders, a firmer grip on her. At the next intersection, he steered her suddenly in the opposite direction they’d been going, slipping into a chattering crowd of tourists. 

“What’s going on?” Amy asked him in a low voice.

“I spotted someone following us,” he said. “Come on, let’s go into that store, okay?”

They went into a secondhand store, where Quinn bought himself a jacket to go over his leather bomber, which he was not giving up just for this. Amy got a scarf and a hat with a little bobble on the top, which Quinn would never admit was adorable. Appearances thus adjusted, Quinn wrapped his arm back around Amy’s shoulders and they set back off for their lunch destination.

“So did we lose him?” Amy asked as they paused at the crosswalk. 

“Maybe,” Quinn said, head quietly on a swivel. “I don’t see him right now. That doesn’t mean much, though, he might have switched off with someone new.”

“Okay,” Amy said. “What are we getting for lunch?”

“You’ll see,” Quinn said. 

Amy rolled her eyes at him, smiling. “You like being mysterious, don’t you?”

“Sure do,” he replied, enjoying the way Amy sassed him. “It’s my hobby. You told me to get a hobby, so I picked being mysterious. It’s really fun.”

“I’m glad you’re finally trying something new,” she said, bumping him with her hip a little. “Since you’ve never been mysterious before, of course.”

“Of course not!” he said, feigning to be wounded. “Me, mysterious? I’m a goddamn open book.”

“Of course you are,” Amy said, nodding solemnly. “My Quinn loves to share everything about his past and his rich inner life with me.”

He snorted expressively, which masked the glance behind him that revealed the guy in the green hoodie, who was so obviously looking for them in the crowd that he felt kind of bad for him. Not, like, a _lot_ bad for him, because it was definitely nice to know that the other side wasn’t good at their jobs. 

“Hey Amy, remember what I said about rolling with it?” Quinn muttered to her, pulling them out of the flow of foot traffic into the doorway of a closed restaurant.

“Yeah,” she had enough time to say, before Quinn leaned down to kiss her. 

It was perfunctory, or at least it was supposed to be. Amy’s muffled noise of surprise was lost in the slant of Quinn’s mouth against hers, and her hands quickly slipped up to grasp his neck. 

Quinn was meant to be keeping his eye out for Green Hoodie, but the press of Amy’s soft lips against his was distracting to his professional instincts. He managed to pull away enough to see the back of Green Hoodie as the guy was pulled along past them, ignoring the couple locking lips.

Amy stared up at him, looking bewildered. Her cheeks were flushed.

“I think we lost him,” Quinn said down to her.

“Oh, is that was that was about?” she said, playing it cool. Quinn could see the way she was looking at him, though, and he would admit that he was not, himself, an especially good man, and weak to temptation. Especially when it was blinking at him, looking good enough to eat.

Which is why it was easy for him to lean down again, catching Amy’s lips with his own once more, enjoying the way she gasped into his mouth, the way her hands flexed and clutched at his neck. Her lips parted beneath his, and he wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her closer as the kiss deepened. He kissed her thoroughly, as she deserved, making sure she enjoyed it as much as he did.

When he pulled away again, Amy’s lips were swollen and her breath was short, and Quinn felt a tiny rush of pride at the dazed look in her eyes. And if he was dealing with a… situation of his own, well, he didn’t think anyone would be able to tell.

“Was that about the guy tailing us too?” Amy asked, her voice just the slightest bit shaky. Neither of them had released the other yet, so they were pressed together still, sharing the same air.

“No,” he admitted. “That was because I wanted to.”

Amy looked up at him. “Okay,” she said, and there was a smile playing across her lips. 

“Okay,” he replied, and when they finally pulled themselves apart, he kept her close against him, and led her to the restaurant. She kept glancing up at him through her eyelashes, and Quinn wondered how professional it would be to keep in touch after his job ended. There odds of Eliot coming for him with a knife was non-zero, which normally would be a deterrent, but he found that despite his better judgement, he really liked Amy.

Oh, fuck. He _really_ liked Amy.

Like, genuinely liked her. Quinn hadn’t done anything genuinely in a long time, and his heart picked _now_ to show up and reassert itself?

He’d never been known for his sense of timing.

“We’re here,” he said aloud, and led Amy into Tamale Boy, where they ordered tamales the size of their heads and she told him more about saving the orcas while he ate his and finished off hers when she tapped out.

“That tamale was amazing,” she said as they walked to the art store. She reached out for him, and for the first time, took his hand, lacing their fingers together. 

Quinn looked down at their hands before looking at her. “What? Yeah, it was, even though you barely touched yours.”

“I ate like two-thirds of that thing, and it was the size of a baby!” she protested, and his fingers tightened against hers, just a little. “It’s not my fault you can, like, absorb food like a black hole. I’m a normal-sized human, not a giant like you.”

“You’re a little short to be normal-sized,” he teased.

“I resent your implications,” she sniffed, not letting go of him.

“I think you resemble my implications,” Quinn said. Amy stuck out her tongue at him.

Oh, he was in trouble, Quinn thought as she led the way into the art supply store. He was in deep.

* * *

“I got two daily specials and a side of the tots!” Amy called, putting in the order for table seven. 

“Amy, do you have a sec?” Eliot asked from the meat station. He was wielding a cleaver at a leg of lamb with terrifying precision.

She’d just refilled drinks and all her orders were in, so she went over to Eliot. “Yeah, sure chef. What do you need?”

“I’m not speaking as the chef or your boss right now, okay?” he asked softly. The clatter of pans and chatter of patrons covered his hushed voice. “I’m saying this as a friend.”

Amy’s fingers twisted around her order pad, but she nodded. “Sure, okay.”

“Listen. I gotta be honest, I was against the whole fake-dating thing. It’s hard for anyone, but especially for people who aren’t used to cons, because it’s easy for everything to feel real.”

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Amy’s stomach. She nodded. 

“I get it,” she said.

“Do you?” he asked, not unkindly. “Because Quinn, he’s good at his job. Real good. Not as good as me, but no one is. And part of his job is to sell the idea that you two are in a real relationship.”

Amy kept nodding, even though it felt like something delicate had just been crushed in her chest. 

“But it’s not real, okay? And I need you to keep that in mind, because when you get real deep into the fiction, it starts to feel real. And you’re a good girl at heart, Amy, and Quinn… he’s bad news. He’s not a good man, do you understand?”

Amy kept right on nodding. 

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of,” Eliot said, and there was something in his voice that told Amy to never, ever ask about those things. “So I know what I’m talking about when I say that Quinn has definitely done plenty of those same kinds of things, and he’s out there right now, doing a sudoku or whatever, not a care in the world. And the kind of guy who can walk away whistling from the kind of work he does is not the kind of guy who’s going to be good for you, Amy.”

She was starting to feel like a bobblehead. “Okay, chef.”

Eliot’s smile was thin but kind. “I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear. But I see the way you look at him sometimes. And I thought that you might want a chance to take a step back.”

“Thank you, chef.” Amy took a deep breath and dug her fingernails into her palm. She had no reason to be upset. She knew it was all fake. She’d known it all along. 

_But it was a nice story,_ a tiny voice whispered. _And he kissed you and said it was because he wanted to. And sometimes he looks at you like he thinks you’re beautiful. And you wanted to believe that he thought you were._

“Sorry, Amy,” Eliot said. “I know this probably isn’t what you wanted to hear. I figured you'd rather hear it from me than Hardison, though.”

Amy managed a laugh. “Oh, you’re probably right,” she said. “He's great, but he'd probably stutter himself into a corner trying not to offend me and I'd spend half the conversation trying to figure out what he was talking about.”

Eliot nodded, his cleaver moving almost too quickly through the meat on his cutting board. “He's got other strengths,” he said. “Anyway, Parker asked me to watch out for you, so I'm trying.”

“She’s a really good friend,” Amy said softly. “And so are you.”

There was a real smile on Eliot’s face at that.

“I think the order for table seven’s up,” he replied, giving her an out from the conversation.

Amy went to pick it up, and when she brought her tray over to table seven, she made sure not to stare at Quinn, sitting by himself at the bar.

 _It’s not real,_ she told herself, taking a deep breath. _You can’t forget that, Ames, because you know he hasn’t. You’re a job to him._

The memory of him laughing in her little kitchen while they ate piping-hot cookies was firmly shoved away. The way he held her hand in the art store, the way he kissed her good night outside her apartment. It wasn’t real. None of it.

No matter how it felt.

* * *

“Hey! What’s the problem here?” 

Amy had never been so grateful to see Quinn. The creepy guy backed up, his hands held up as if to prove his innocence.

“Ain’t nothing,” he said. “No problem.”

“You need something from my girlfriend?” Quinn asked, but the guy was already backing up.

“Nope, I’ll figure it out,” he said. 

Quinn wrapped his arm around Amy’s waist as the guy made his escape, and was quietly pleased at the way she pressed back against him. 

“I have no idea what he wanted, but he came out of nowhere and I thought—”

“You were freaked out because you’re in danger, and I wasn’t with you,” he said, angry with himself. “Next time I need to use the bathroom, I’m bringing you with me.”

“Into the _bathroom?_ ” Amy asked, horrified. Quinn noticed that she wasn’t pulling away, though. 

“Maybe not _into_ the bathroom,” he relented. “But you’re gonna stand right outside, and talk to me the whole time so I can hear you.”

“Wow,” Amy said, turning to look up at him. “You’re taking this really seriously, huh.”

This close, he could see the way her eyes had a golden shine to them, which was something he should not be noticing in a professional context. On the other hand, he wasn’t especially keen on workplace norms.

“It’s my job to keep you safe,” he said, quietly on the busy sidewalk. “I take that pretty seriously, yeah.” He thought about kissing her again.

“You’re right,” Amy said, stepping away from him. “Wouldn’t want to jeopardize your paycheck!”

She said it cheerfully, brightly, but Quinn had to wonder. She’d been acting sort of strange the past few days. And she hadn’t let him kiss her again, even though he was pretty sure she wanted him to.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out to hook a finger into her belt loop. “Everything okay?”

“Yup!” she replied, a smile on her face. Quinn wondered if he was misreading her now, or if he’d been misreading her before. He’d thought… 

_Wouldn’t want to jeopardize your paycheck!_

Well. He’d probably been wrong. 

“Want to get Cinnabon on our way to the gallery tonight?”

This smile, he was pretty sure was absolutely genuine. It made her eyes bright and her cheeks flush. He couldn’t resist opening his palm against her hip, a possessive grip— just in case of observers, of course.

“Duh,” she said. “I always want Cinnabon. I need to stop at the grocery store tonight, too.”

“Sure, we can swing by after the gallery,” Quinn said. He slid his hand around her to tuck her against his side as they resumed their stroll. He didn’t like that she’d been approached by some guy; he wanted to keep her shielded, in case anyone was watching. He wanted to stake his claim.

Weird or not, Amy settled in against him easily. He liked how petite she was— a lot of the women he’d guarded before had been model-types, wives or mistresses, tall and busty and in-your-face. Amy was five-three tops, and she fit against him comfortably, not too tiny, not so tall that he couldn’t shield her with his body.

“I told the curator about you,” she said as they moved down the sidewalk together. “You know, Carla, with the pink hair?” 

“Did you,” he said. Amy seemed to take his non-committal statement as an invitation to talk more.

“Yeah, she noticed how you drop me off and hang around while I’m there. She was asking about you— about us, I mean, you know, how long we’d been together, how we met, that kind of thing,” she went on. 

Quinn realized that they had never actually agreed on a story, which was the kind of rookie mistake he hated making; he’d gotten so used to living in Amy’s little brewpub-sized bubble that it hadn’t come up in their weeks together. No one had asked, and he hadn’t thought it was important. But of course it was.

“What did you tell her about me?” he asked. 

“Uh, just your name,” Amy said. “Oh! Wait, she asked what you do for a living.”

“And what did you say?” Quinn asked, interested. “I assume you didn’t tell her I’m a hitter.”

“No, I said you’re a contractor,” Amy said, which startled a bark of laughter out of Quinn. 

“A contractor! That’s good!” he said, chuckling. “That’s only like half a lie.”

Amy shrugged, looking pleased at his reaction. “That’s what I figured. I mean, you do take contracts, after all.”

“Smart girl,” Quinn said, unable to stop himself from sounding fond. “Anything else I should know? We should have our stories straight.”

Amy glanced up at him just as he was looking down at her, and he wondered if she felt the same connection he did. If she wished he hadn’t kissed her, or if she was wishing he’d kiss her again, or… whatever.

“I figured I’d keep it simple,” she said. “You’re a regular at the brewpub, asked me out after flirting with me for a while. We live near each other so it was easy to get together.”

“What was our first date?” he asked, trying not to sound too ironic. Usually he sorted this kind of thing out early, but usually the client was the one he was supposedly dating, so it was easy to remember. For once, Hardison hadn’t given him a lot of cover story, just a fake name with a driver’s license, a couple of credit cards, and a short-term lease. Hardison seemed pretty wrapped up in whatever con they were running; Quinn hadn’t seen him in like a week. 

“Our first date was Cinnabon, of course,” Amy said. 

“Of course,” Quinn said, snorting. “And did you tell her that I think it’s too sweet and super gross?”

“I did, actually,” Amy replied. Quinn suppressed his urge to slip his hand into her back pocket. “She thought it was super cute that you take me for Cinnabon all the time, even though you hate it. She said we were hashtag couple goals.”

The look she aimed at him was hard to read, even for someone who made his living reading body language. 

“It’s not hard to make it sound perfect when you can make up whatever you want,” he said, and from the way she looked away, Quinn knew it had been the wrong thing to say. 

“You’re right,” she said, slipping away from him a little under the pretense of checking her phone. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.””

“Hey, I’m not the one who needs to clock in,” he teased, trying to get her back to the ease they’d had. He liked it, how free of artifice she was. His whole life was artifice; it was different to be around someone so wholehearted, so wholeheartedly real.

“No, you’re always on the clock,” she said, and it wasn’t the teasing he was hoping for. 

She took his arm again, as she had returned to doing, and they walked the rest of the way to the brewpub in silence.

* * *

“How’s the fake dating going?” Parker asked, sprawling out in one of the armchairs in the back room. Amy was curled up on the couch, scrolling aimlessly through social media and wondering if she ought to post some sort of evidence of Quinn’s presence in her life. For verisimilitude, or whatever. 

“It’s good,” Amy said. 

“Is it?” Parker tilted her head as she looked at Amy, and her gaze made Amy feel like a bug under a microscope.

“Yeah, totally,” Amy lied. “Quinn’s been great. Really professional.”

“I don’t know what that means for fake dating,” Parker said, “but it doesn’t _sound_ right. Professional?”

“Yeah, like he’s always paying attention, and like… I don’t know. Keeping me safe?”

“Sounds like Hardison tries to do for me,” Parker said. “So I guess it’s basically the same thing as regular dating.”

“We sure hope it looks like regular dating,” Amy said. “Isn’t that the point?”

“That’s true,” Parker said comtempletively. “You’re smart, Amy. You shouldn’t be a waitress. You’d be a good criminal.”

“Oh no, nope, not you too,” Amy said, waving her hands at her friend. “You sound like my dad! I just wanna make enough money to be comfortable and make art, okay?”

“Your dad wants you to be a criminal?” Parker said with interest. 

“Any person who has more than a billion dollars and doesn’t use it to help people is a criminal,” Amy said firmly. “If you have that kind of money, you have power, and—”

“Oh, I know this one! With great power comes great responsibility!” Parker said gleefully. “Hardison made me watch all the Spiderman movies last time he was sick.”

“Which ones?” Amy asked, wondering which actor her boss preferred.

“ _All_ of them,” Parker said, and Amy’s shocked face made her snort. “But now I know about Uncle Ben, who is _not_ the same as the Uncle Ben from the rice, and Aunt May, and Doc Ock, and Two-Face, and—”

Amy cut her off. “Yeah, Parker,” she said. “You’re right. Great power, great responsibility. So the way my dad treats money, and people, it’s— it’s not something I agree with.”

Parker shrugged. “That makes sense,” she said. “As long as you’re happy.”

Amy thinks about it— her life, with her little one-bedroom apartment, her friends, her independence— “Yeah, I’m happy,” she said.

“You didn’t sound very sure about that,” Parker said, squinting at her. “If you need anything, you tell me, okay? I have money, and I’m a criminal, but I help people, so you can take my money, right? So if you need anything, tell me.”

Amy looked over at her friend. “Thanks, Parker,” she said. “That’s really nice of you.”

Parker nodded firmly. “I mean it,” she said. “And if Quinn doesn’t treat you right, I’ll take care of him, too.”

Amy laughed. “No offense, Parker, but I’m pretty sure you can’t take him in a fight.”

Parker raised her eyebrows, looking elfish. “Who said anything about fighting him? We have Eliot for that. I’ll just steal all his stuff and make Hardison mess with him online.”

“You guys are really good friends,” Amy said, feeling somehow better after Parker’s threats. 

“What are friends for if they’re not ready to commit crimes for you, Amy?” she asked. “Wanna come upstairs and watch a movie? I have that new musical you said you wanted to watch.”

“But that’s not out yet!”

“Amy,” Parker said, rolling her eyes. “What kind of thief can’t steal a movie? Come on, I’ll make Eliot make us that fancy popcorn.”

“Deal,” Amy said. “Let me just go tell Quinn.”

“Okay,” Parker said. “I guess he could come too, if you wanted. We’ve never hung out with him before, but I guess he’s kind of one of us right now, isn’t he? Since he’s your boyfriend and all.”

“Fake boyfriend, that _you_ hired,” Amy said. There was a part of her that wanted him to stay, and another part of her that wanted to keep the movie night sacred. In just a couple weeks, Quinn would be gone, and she didn’t know if she wanted his ghost lurking around there, too. It was already in her apartment, the brewpub, the gallery, even the grocery store.

“Sure,” Parker said. “I’ll see you upstairs, then.” 

Watching Parker exit up through the air duct was always a feat of strength and grace that Amy couldn’t imagine pulling off. And before she knew it, Parker was gone.

She tracked down Quinn, who hid his tablet screen as she approached his table. 

“What’s up?” he asked. “Ready to go?”

“Actually, it’s movie night for me and Parker, I’m going up to the apartment,” she said. “You don’t have to stick around, we usually end up going pretty late. I’m sure one of the team can bring me home when we’re done.” 

She was expecting him to pack right up and leave, free of babysitting her for the night.

“Alright,” he said. “I can hang out down here until you’re ready to go. Think they’ll mind if I watch the game in the back room?”

“You’re staying?” Amy asked. “I thought you’d want to go enjoy being free for the night.” She wondered if she sounded as bitter as she felt at the idea of Quinn off, footloose without her, going to a real bar or something, meeting someone he actually connected with instead of someone he was hired to spend all his time with— 

“Of course I’m staying,” he said, as though it were a foregone conclusion. “You’re the most important thing right now.”

Amy bite her lip, her voice catching in her throat. She wished, for just a moment, that he meant that differently. He wasn’t a good man, but he was kind to her, and made her feel safe, and his looks certainly didn’t hurt either… 

“You’re welcome to come up and watch with us,” she said. “I feel I should warn you though, it’s a musical.”

He grinned up at her. “Warning noted. I’ll stick with the game.” His grin softened into a genuine smile, the sort of thing that might melt her a little, if she didn’t remind herself that this. wasn’t. real. “Thanks for the invite, though. Maybe some other time.”

Some other time would probably be after he was long gone, dust in the wind.

“What kind of movies do you like?” she asked, pushing aside that thought. Maybe they would have a movie night. Maybe it would end up mattering. Maybe she just wanted another piece of him.

He quirked an eyebrow. She filed his expression away to sketch later. “Guess.”

She folded her arms and squinted. It felt like a trick question, so… “Action movies.”

He made a little finger gun and shot it at her, closing one eye. “Got it in one.”

“Don’t the inaccuracies bother you?” Amy asked. Parker was forever critiquing the heist movies she insisted they watch. It was a good thing Amy found her commentary fascinating, because otherwise it would drive her nuts. And Eliot was a stickler for trigger discipline, which Amy now knew more about than she had ever expected to.

“Nah. I mean, I notice them, but it’s a movie, y’know?” Quinn said, shrugging. “Besides, if they were too accurate, I wouldn’t be able to fool people nearly so easily. It’s nice to have a few trade secrets actually be secret.”

“Fair enough,” Amy said. “Well, if you need me, you know where to find me.”

“Back atcha,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready to call it a night.”

Five hours later, when Amy stumbled giggling into the back room of the brewpub, Quinn was asleep on the couch, his feet propped up on the arm and hanging off. In sleep, he looked softer, less arch- and he was drooling a little, which Amy decided she found cute.

“Hey,” she whispered, reaching out to poke his shoulder. “Quinn. I’m ready to go.”

She’d learned from Eliot that you never shake a sleeping hitter. Her experience stood her in good stead as Quinn cracked open his eyes, going from unconscious to awake almost too fast.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked. Amy giggled again.

“Just a little. Hardison’s been trying his hand at gin, so we made some drinks with his latest batch. They were pretty good,” she said, leaning on the back of the couch, looking down at him. She had the sudden urge to tip down and kiss him.

“Did you now. Maybe next time I’ll have to come with you, see if Hardison’s better at gin than he is at jokes,” he said. Amy couldn’t look away from his mouth. His lips were thin, but so expressive; she had pages of sketches of just his jaw and mouth, trying to capture the subtle shapes of it. 

“It was pretty good gin,” she said.

“We’d better get you home,” Quinn said, sliding down the couch to get up. Amy wished he hadn’t moved.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, arching back into a stretch, her arms flexing up. “I guess I’m tired.”

“You guess?” he asked, smiling that sardonic smile of his, the one that said he was laughing at, not with.

Amy pointed a slightly unsteady finger at him. “Maybe I usually spend my weekends clubbing until dawn, you don’t know. Maybe this is super early for me.”

He laughed and reached out, taking her hand and unfolding her fingers. His tone was sarcastic but his hands were gentle on hers. “I think I know you well enough by now to know that clubs aren’t really your scene.”

She wrinkled her nose at him as he ushered her towards the back door, where their jackets hung. “I bet clubs are your scene,” she said as Quinn put his jacket on. “I bet you go there and meet- women, you meet all kinds of women.”

He held up her jacket, handling her gently into it. “Do I, now? What kinds of women am I meeting at the clubs?”

She allowed Quinn to lead her out the door and tuck her under his arm. Ensconced in his reassuring, familiar, firm warmth, Amy knew exactly the kind of women he must go for.

“Tall,” she started off, “and hot, and fashionable, I bet.”

“Fashionable, really,” he said, eyes sharp as they checked shadows, windows, rooftops along the familiar route.

“Yeah, like, just really fancy clothing, and I bet they’re all models or something,” Amy rambled on, the gin making it easy to just let the words flow. “And I bet they’re all, like, really good at kissing—”

“Babe,” he said suddenly. “Be quiet for a sec.”

“Why, is it because I’m right and you don’t like it? I bet that’s why, you—”

“Amy,” he said through his teeth, “please, for one minute, just be quiet, okay?”

Surprised by the tension in his body, Amy did as he asked and hushed.

They walked in silence for a little bit, the only noise coming from their shoes on the pavement, the occasional cars going by, the distant sound of the river. They passed a bar that spilled light and music out into the street, and Quinn stopped them in the honey-glow of the window. 

“Do you have your ID on you?” he asked, not looking at her face, focused on their surroundings.

The cold air and brisk walk had sobered Amy up a bit. “Sure, why? Are we gonna go inside?”

“Yeah. The guy from last week is here.”

“Okay,” Amy said, fumbling for her bag and coming up with her wallet. “Let’s do that, then.”

* * *

Once inside the bar, Quinn maneuvered Amy along, looking for a good place to stand. He found a nook that was tucked into a corner, with good visibility. The downside, of course, was that it was at least nominally part of the dance floor, so they couldn’t huddle down and wait it out. 

“Sorry,” he muttered into the space by her ear as they wove through the crowd. “All the tables are too close to windows to be safe.”

He felt more than saw her nod as they worked their way to the corner, where Quinn’s inclination was to pin her against the wall and physically put himself between her and anyone who wanted to do her harm.

Wow, he had it worse than he'd thought. That kind of thought wasn’t normal for him, even on bodyguarding jobs.

Amy’s hand snaked up to pull his head down, closer to her mouth. The music was pumping, the bass reverberating through their bodies, and the dim lights and press of bodies made the room feel somehow intimate in a way that even her apartment hadn’t felt.

Her breath tickled his ear. “What do you want me to do?”

He wondered if she was still tipsy. She didn’t seem to be quite as giggly as she had been, which was good, because drunk girls weren’t his thing. One too many bad experiences with that would put a guy off drunk girls forever.

What did he want her to do? The list was lengthy, but he was pretty sure she didn’t mean in bed. And they’d only kissed the one time, so he definitely couldn’t suggest most of the things that sprang to mind.

“Quinn?” she said, and the thread of fear in her voice snapped him back into his own head in the present. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry, I was thinking. I’m gonna put my back to the wall, and you’re gonna stand here in front of me, okay? I need to be able to see the room, and that way your face is hidden.”

“Alright,” she replied, and waited for him to shove his way up into the corner, glaring at the guy he was displacing until the shorter man made room for them. 

She tucked herself up into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her nose into his button-down shirt. It was the easiest thing in the world to wrap her in his arms, his thumbs stroking her shoulders soothingly to the thumping bassline.

His eyes scanned the crowd, which was thankfully not so full that he couldn’t see most people’s faces. Most of the people in the room looked like the kind of boring, normal drunk people that Quinn would usually avoid— guys looking for a girl, girls looking to be looked at. A sketchy guy quickly dismissed as a pot dealer, and at least one girl who was _probably_ a working girl, possibly the kind who was looking to lighten a wallet or two more than agreed upon.

None of the people around them were a threat to Amy, who was swaying with him to the beat, giving credence to the pretense that they were there to dance.

Her body was comfortable against his, relaxed in a way he was not accustomed to women being. If they knew who he was, they were usually a bit tense out of a normal sense of self preservation, and if they didn’t know who he was, they were also tense out of self preservation. When you’re a man with Quinn’s reputation, that’s just life.

But Amy was relaxed, placing herself easily into his hands. She didn’t know his first name, barely knew anything about him but how dangerous he was, and she trusted him anyway. 

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself enjoy this. Amy’s hands gripping the back of his shirt, her breath hot against his chest, the scent of her shampoo— apples and honey, he thought. 

“You alright?” he asked her softly, right next to her ear. She had funny little ears, which at first glance were odd-looking but now he found endearing. 

Amy nodded. “I’m good,” she said, muffled. 

“If you need something, poke me three times, okay?” he told her, and waited for the nod before he looked back up. And when he did, there was Green Hoodie, who was currently wearing some kind of chambray shirt but was still nicknamed Green Hoodie. “Aw, fuck.”

Amy made an interrogative noise and he leaned down, not looking away from their tail, to tell her, “I see one of the guys from the other day. I don’t know how they figured out we came in here.”

He’d been so careful, and somehow this clown had found them. Actually… it looked like Green Hoodie was conferencing with another guy, who looked both older and meaner. Not that it was hard to look older and meaner, Green Hoodie looked about as threatening as a college student who was majoring in jazz and philosophy.

“Hey,” he said, leaning down. “Can you roll with it again?”

Amy leaned back, looking up at him, and he took her nod for assent to lean down and kiss her again. It was better this time, somehow, the danger giving it an edge of adrenaline, the closeness and the heat, the way she was pressed against him and swaying her hips…

Basically, it was a good kiss. Possibly even a great kiss.

He had to pull away to check on Green Hoodie, and when he looked up, neither of the men were in sight, which freed him up to kiss Amy again. She was easy and light in his arms, making needy little noises into his mouth, and without conscious thought Quinn’s hands slid down to her hips, pulling her as close to him as possible as he devoured her mouth. 

“Wait,” she said as he kissed her lips, across her cheek, over to find out if her ear was tender. “Wait, Quinn, hang on.”

“What?” he asked, delighted by the way she shivered at the scrape of his teeth against the shell of her ear.

“What are you- what is this?” she asked, not pulling away from him.

“Right now, I’m your boyfriend,” he said, wanting to find out if the column of her neck was as sensitive to his touch. 

“Is that all?” she asked, tilting her chin up and back to give his questing mouth access to the side of her neck. 

“Is that not enough?” he murmured against the soft skin he found there. 

Her hips were pressed against him, and Quinn knew there was absolutely no way Amy could miss the way his body was reacting to this situation. She wasn’t pulling away, though. To the contrary, she was pressing back against him, they bodies bumping and moving to the pounding bass. 

“Fuck,” he swore into her neck. 

“What?” she asked, voice gone breathy and distracted. He pulled back, drinking in the sight of her, flushed and sweaty, pupils dilated and lips swollen. 

“We should go,” he said. 

“Now?” Amy asked, that tiny pout he recognized making another appearance. Her hips rolled to the beat, making a very compelling point for staying put in their cozy, anonymous corner.

“It would be better-” he started, aware of what he was doing. He was sabotaging himself, because he cared too much about this girl, and it wasn’t safe to care about people in his line of work. Especially clients. 

He leaned down and allowed himself to kiss her one more time, memorizing the way her lips felt against his. When he pulled away, she leaned forward and scraped her teeth across his pulse point. It made his hips jerk and his heart stutter.

“Now that’s just not fair,” he said, his voice a growl in his throat. She really was something, his Amy.

“Mm,” she said, sliding her hands free and up to play with his hair. “I have wanted to touch your hair so bad.”

He leaned his head down into her touch, enjoying the way her short nails played across his scalp. “Feel free,” he said, trying to remember why it was so urgent that they leave. He turned his head to press a kiss to the inside of her arm where it was close to his face.

The music was changing, the pounding bass transitioning into a softer, slower beat. Couples who’d been grinding on the floor started to slow down, relaxing into the new beat.

Amy’s hands in his hair, the quieter atmosphere, the sudden ache of tenderness in him… it was too much, suddenly, for Quinn.

“We need to get you home,” he said, removing his hands from Amy’s hips to gently detangle hers from his hair. She pouted at him, but he was caught up in the too-much-ness of it all, and he was, by god, getting them both home. To bed. 

Separate beds. 

It wasn’t safe, to care this much about a person. About a _client._

Over the speakers, a girl’s voice crooned, “I wanna love you.... dancing on the floor…”

“Time to go, Amy,” Quinn said again, and this time the steel in his voice convinced her that he really did mean it.

* * *

It was… weird between them for a couple of days after that. Amy didn’t know how to ask the questions that were brewing in the weird echoey space behind her sternum, and Quinn was looking at her even less than usual. He wasn’t sitting in her section, either, so she didn’t even have their usual banter-y chats where he would say whatever he wanted and she’d pick his meals for him. 

So far he’d liked everything she’d brought him. Except, apparently, herself. 

Amy knew it was a bad idea to get caught up in her criminal bodyguard. She _knew_ it. Her sister would say that it was a trope and tropes were inevitable and inescapable. Her mother would chalk it up to her lack of a bad-boy phase in her youth; clearly, this was just that, but delayed. Her father would want to pick his brain about tax evasion.

So it was weird, and Amy decided that the safest thing to do would be to forget all about the best make-out session of her life. Which was way easier said than done. 

She glanced at Quinn’s profile and could still feel the ghost of his lips on her neck.

Way, _way_ easier said than done.

* * *

“Hang on,” Quinn said, standing in the doorway of the back room. “Back up, who was the guy in that last picture?”

Hardison turned too look at Quinn, and obligingly scrolled back a few slides. 

“No, back another one- yeah, him,” Quinn said, coming fully into the room. “The guy with the bad haircut.”

“Man, this picture is from the 80s, everyone in it has a bad haircut,” Hardison said. Quinn was about to give him some shit, but the hacker went on. “If you mean the one on the right, with the truly horrifying mullet, though, that’s the brother of the guy we’re after right now. He’s not important, the one we want is on the left.”

“Hate to burst your bubble, quickfingers,” Quinn said, “but I’m pretty sure that the one on the right was following me and Amy a few days ago, so you might want to go ahead and update your little not-important label on the guy.”

“He was what?” Eliot said. “And you didn’t think this was relevant?”

“Relevant to what? You specifically wanted to keep me in the dark, you don’t get to get mad at me for being in the dark, okay,” Quinn said defensively. 

“That’s a fair point,” Hardison said, intervening before the hitters could escalate. “We did do that. Quinn, you’re sure?”

“I mean, I saw him in a bar in low lighting and he’s probably 35 years older now, but yeah, pretty sure,” Quinn said.

“Lemme get you a more recent picture,” Hardision said, fingers flying. The image on the screen shuffled and changed. “Same guy?”

Quinn nodded. “Yeah, that’s definitely him,” he said. “And the younger guy on the far left is the one who’s been tailing us more often.”

“I can’t believe I missed that,” Parker said, startling Quinn, who hadn’t seen her perched in the rafters. She sounded put out. “I should’ve seen that sooner!”

“Babe, don’t sweat it,” Hardison soothed. “You’ve been really busy running the con, you’ve barely had time to sleep.”

Eliot looked up. “It’s fine, Parker,” he said. “We didn’t have that information before, we do now, we keep going.”

“But it means that-”

“I’m sorry,” Eliot said, turning to look at Quinn. “Did you need something else?”

“No,” Quinn said, inexplicably hurt that he was being sent out of the room after his contribution. As much as he’d never admit it, he was jealous of the thing that they had, where they could rely on each other and have someone they trusted in their blind spots.

Quinn hadn’t had someone covering his blind spots in a very long time. 

He left the room, going back out into the brewpub proper, where Amy was smiling as she chatted with a table of women in matching shirts. 

He wanted to go over to her and kiss her again, in daylight and without even a hint of alcohol on her breath. He wanted to know if she might someday like him, actually him, and not whatever version of him existed in her head. He wanted-

A lot of thing. Things he couldn’t have.

Quinn went up to the bar and ordered a beer. There were at least four hours left on Amy’s shift, and he needed a drink.

* * *

"Good news!" Parker called out, dropping from her customary air vent directly onto the couch. "You and Quinn can break up!"

Amy looked at her friend like she'd grown an extra head in the five days or so since she'd last seen her. "What?"

“I figured out what was going on!” Parker said. “Actually, Quinn was the one who solved it, kind of, because he gave me a missing piece, but I’m still the one who put all the pieces _together,_ so long story short, you’re safe now!”

“Oh,” Amy said. In the week since movie-and-gin-night turned into steamy-bar-makeout-with-Quinn-night, things had been weird. Very weird. But that didn’t mean she was ready to go back to a life totally devoid of Quinn. 

“This is good news!” Parker said. “You’re not excited, I thought you’d be excited. You’re _safe_ now!” She gave Amy little jazz hands to underscore her point.

“No, sorry, of course I’m excited!” Amy said. “Thank you for keeping me safe, Parker, you know I appreciate this so much, you’re an amazing friend. I’m just… going through some other stuff right now, too, that’s all. This is great news!”

“Okay,” Parker said, accepting Amy’s explanation without an interrogation. “I’m just happy we don’t have to save you from another van this time or anything.”

“You know what, me too,” Amy said with a shudder. “You’re the best, Parker.”

“Thanks, Amy,” Parker said. “I like you too.”

Amy hugged her friend, wondering what this meant for… whatever was going on between her and Quinn.

As it turned out, what it meant was that Quinn was planning on leaving without so much as a goodbye. She didn’t see him at all during her shift, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on being able to look over and see that familiar head of hair, that profile she’d sketched over and over, until it was suddenly gone.

And when she clocked out, she found that walking home alone made her inexplicably sad. It was lonely, to be walking by herself, no one to hold onto, or to sling an arm across her shoulders and keep her safe and warm. 

She went home, sat on her couch, and turned on the TV. Say Yes to the Dress was on, and she fell asleep there on her couch, having had two glasses of wine and watched a marathon of bad TV.

The next morning, walking herself back to the restaurant, Amy acknowledged to herself what she’d been trying so hard to deny: she had managed to get a huge, dumb crush on her bodyguard-slash-fake-boyfriend. _Former_ bodyguard-slash-fake-boyfriend. Whose first name she still didn’t know, so she couldn’t even try to find out if career criminals used Facebook or Instagram.

“Man, this is so _weird_ and _dumb,_ ” Amy muttered to herself as she tied on her apron.

“What’s weird and dumb?” Lauren, the other waitress on shift, asked.

“My life,” Amy said, with a sigh to show she was aware of her own melodrama.

“Girl, I hear that,” Lauren said, offering her a fistbump, which Amy returned somewhat gloomily.

Quinn’s head of curly hair didn’t reappear, no matter how often Amy looked for it.

* * *

He’d been informed his job was done and he was expected to turn in the ID, credit card, apartment keys, and burner phone by the end of the day, and Quinn had taken that as the warning it was clearly meant to be. He was on a plane out of Portland before the sun set, and if he did it all without actually going to Amy and saying anything, well, that was life sometimes, right?

Sometimes people just leave. Sometimes there isn’t a big dramatic goodbye. Some things are better left unsaid, and he didn’t trust himself not to say them. 

Sometimes it’s safer to ruin things for yourself, so that you’re not tempted to go back to them when you don’t deserve them and know you can’t keep them. 

He took the next contract offered to him, which was to guard some shipment of something in Belarus, and made a conscious decision to move on. No more thinking about the Leverage team and their cushy headquarters and their ability to pick and choose their jobs. No more thinking about the food at the brewpub and those tamales and even the shitty Cinnabon coffee he’d had more of than he would have ever thought possible, because he wasn’t going to think about Amy any more. 

What happened in Portland was staying in Portland, and Quinn was gonna stay the hell out of Portland, and that was gonna be that. 

And it was fine, he told himself. He was _fine._

And by some miracle, he was. 

For like two weeks.

* * *

“Amy!”

“What do you need, Carla?” Amy asked, hanging up her coat in the back room. 

“I cannot believe this is happening, it is the absolute last thing I need right now-”

Carla’s pink-beaded braids were trembling around her round dark face as she spoke, filled with agitation. 

“Uh, take a deep breath with me, okay?” Amy said, taking the gallery curator by the hand. She’d watched Carla run things with an iron fist in one moment and turn around and lose the plot in the next, and she needed Carla in iron-fist mode.

Carla took a shuddering breath along Amy, held it, and exhaled, and in the exhalation her shoulders went back and her mantle of leadership reappeared, like magic.

“Okay,” Carla said. “Okay. I’m good. I’m good.”

Amy smiled bracingly. “What do you need?”

“You know Emily? The one with the big lotus tattoo?”

Amy nodded. “Sure, Emily Sinclair.”

“Yeah, well, apparently her parents cut her off and she had to move back to, like, Iowa or whatever, and she took all her work with her.” Carla’s expression was so beyond exasperated and disapproving that Amy had to fight not to smile. 

“That’s not great,” Amy said solemnly.

“Yeah, understatement,” Carla said. “The gallery opening is in two weeks, and I need Emily’s station filled, stat.” She gave Amy a meaningful look.

“And you want _me_ to do it?” Amy asked, staggered. “You don’t have any ringers you can call in?”

“This might shock you, but a ringer won’t fit in at a showcase for undiscovered talent, and I don’t just have a barn full of starving artists. I need a series of work from an undiscovered artist of color, and I don’t have time to find another one who I can rely on. More than that, I _know_ you can,” Carla said, so confident and earnest that Amy almost believed her. “You’re reliable, and I know you’re versatile, unlike half of my current crop. I mean, everyone here is good, obviously, but a lot of them basically have one thing they do well, and I can’t have two stations full of the same kind of art. That would be redundant!”

Amy blinked at this verbal onslaught. “But- I mean, what do you think I should exhibit? I don’t have anything else ready!”

Amy’s collection was a series of realistic orcas, painted in electric, ecstatic Lisa Frank color, in oceans filled with designs and motifs inspired by classic Indian art. It was a kaleidoscopic experience to view as a whole, and Amy loved each individual piece. It had taken months to create the entire series. 

Carla was calm now, which Amy appreciated because her own calm had exited the building. 

“Listen, I know you said that your sketches aren’t meant to be seen…” Carla started. Amy was already shaking her head.

“No, I can’t,” Amy said. “No way, I mean _no way_ am I exhibiting sketches.”

“I know,” Carla said. “But here’s what I was thinking. I know you have about a million sketches of your yummy boyfriend, Quinn Whatever.”

“Quinn’s his last name,” Amy corrected absently.

“Oh, sorry, I don't remember his first name,” Carla asked, contrite. “Remind me?”

Amy shook her head again. _I don’t know, and isn’t it weird, to not know the first name of the guy you’re in l- having a huge crush on?_

“That’s not the point,” she said instead. “I can’t show my sketches of _Quinn,_ what are you talking about?”

“No, listen,” Carla said, and laid out her plan so convincingly that by the end of it, she had Amy nodding along, somewhat skeptical, but on board.

* * *

A few weeks after he’d left Portland, Quinn found himself standing in the Atlanta airport, staring at the board of departures. The date was nagging at him, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know why.

The next day was Amy’s gallery opening. 

He was supposed to be getting a ticket to London, to meet his connection for a new job, which he thought might be in the Middle East. Far, far from Portland. 

But Quinn found his feet carrying him towards the domestic flight ticket booth, and his hand selecting a flight to Oregon, and without a lot of conscious decision making, he was heading back to Portland.

As it turned out, he had some unfinished business to take care of.

* * *

“Nervous?” Carla asked the assembled artists. The dozen or so of them glanced at each other. “That’s normal. Now stop being nervous, because this is gonna be great. You’re a talented bunch, which is why you’re here, after all! Stay chill, don’t do any drugs that weren’t prescribed _to you_ by a doctor with a current medical license, and enjoy yourselves. Doors open in ten, if you need anything ask me or Mei, and most importantly, don’t put yourselves down! No one wants to hear about how you’re not proud of your work. It’s great, you’re great, own it.”

Carla ended this speech by giving them all a thumbs up, and rushed off to talk to the caterer. Amy tugged at her suit jacket, which was a rich plum purple, to make sure it was hanging right.

Her parents were coming tonight. Her mom had texted her to confirm. She was gonna _puke._

“Hey, I just wanted to thank you,” Carla said, appearing behind Amy. “I really appreciate how you stepped up for me at the last minute. I know I kind of bullied you into it, but you really outdid yourself.”

Amy gave Carla a tight smile. “Thank you,” she replied. “Your speech was good, if also… kind of specific?”

Carla rolled her eyes. “You would not believe the nonsense a crowd of nervous artists will get into. Specificity is never wasted.”

Amy laughed. Carla smiled down at her from her towering high-heeled height. 

“Anyway, you went above and beyond for me, and I won’t forget that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go put on the music.” Carla patted Amy’s shoulder on her way past.

“Okay,” Amy said to herself, tugging at her jacket’s hem again. “You got this, Ames. You’re a Palavi, you can do anything.”

The music was playing, low and unobtrusive in the background. The doors were about to open.

“It’s gonna be great,” Amy said, and wasn’t sure if she believed it.

* * *

Quinn showed up to the gallery a good hour after the opening had started, but that seemed to be pretty normal, because there were still people going in, more than were coming out anyway. He was carrying a bundle of crinkling plastic, alternating between feeling like an idiot and as though he was making the first correct decision in… a while. 

He took a deep breath. He’d come this far, and his mama had raised a hitter, not a quitter. He could handle it. 

He slipped inside the gallery for the first time- well, the first time while it was open, of course. He’d cased the place a few times, but Amy had been adamant that he not come inside with her any of the times he'd walked her over. He’d waited across the street, keeping a sharp eye on the building, whenever they’d come.

The experience of the gallery when it was closed and dark, weeks before the exhibit, was nothing compared to the actual show. The room was a weird maze of jagged walls sticking out at odd angles, carefully placed to provide good sightlines through the room while encouraging visitors to wander in a specific traffic pattern. Each wall was covered in a different style of art, and the artists milled around hopefully by their own walls, ready to chat up passers-by.

Quinn knew where Amy’s station should be, but he picked up a booklet of prices and wandered, careful not to seem too purposeful. He didn’t _get_ all the art, but from the fact that he was in the minority as a white guy in the room, he figured that was probably about right. He’d worked with more than enough art people to know that not every piece of art was for the same audience, and he probably wasn’t really the target audience for this show. 

Amy’s station was supposed to be at the next right angle from this one, and he took a deep breath, wondering how she’d react to his sudden reappearance. Suddenly, this whole thing seemed like a huge mistake- after all, he hadn’t said goodbye, not even a note, just hopped on a plane and disappeared. And now he was showing back up out of the blue, at her _first gallery opening,_ in front of a lot of people, and he didn’t know how Amy was going to react, and-

“I do not understand this,” he heard a man say loudly. “This, this is what you throw away your life on? Brightly colored fish?”

 _Orcas,_ Quinn thought, _Amy’s art is orcas-_

Dropping his burden beneath a beverage table as he moved quickly around the corner, he saw Amy, looking incredible in a purple jacket with nice jeans, her hair down, being lectured by an Indian man who towered over her. He was shaking a finger, pointing at her art, and Quinn’s instincts didn’t give him time to think before he was in motion.

“Amy,” he said, striding over to her. He watched a series of emotions cross her face- confusion, shock, happiness maybe- before he was beside her, tucking her into his side. Where he was pretty sure she belonged. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

From the way she was looking at him, he wasn’t sure she accepted his apology, but he’d be damned if he left her alone in the face of this.

“Excuse me,” the man pointing his finger said. “Who are you? Amy, who is this man, and why is he touching you in this way?”

Considering Quinn was just wrapping an arm around Amy’s shoulders, and wasn’t doing anything even remotely inappropriate, he felt like this was a pretty outsize accusation. 

“I’m her boyfriend,” he said calmly, extending a hand. “You must be Amy’s father.”

“Yes,” the man said. “Victor Palavi.” Quinn knew who he was. He gave Quinn exactly the sort of handshake he’d been expecting: a power play, a hard squeeze. He gave Victor a squeeze back, and enjoyed the reaction he got.

“I’m Amy’s mother,” the short, slight woman beside him said. “Prathiba.” Her handshake was much softer, her expression apologetic. She looked like the sort of woman who apologized a lot.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Quinn said. “I’m Quinn.” He gave Prathiba the sort of smile that tended to charm mothers, and it seemed to work, although Victor did not seem to be a fan of his. Well, the feeling was mutual.

“It’s funny,” Victor said. “Amy has never mentioned having a boyfriend to us before.” His tone was dangerous, and Quinn had a sudden memory of the first time he’d met Amy, and how she’d said _I’ve met dictators._ He understood how that had come to pass.

“We’ve been keeping it kind of quiet,” he said, stroking his fingers along her shoulder. “Sorry.”

He said it while smiling, and knew he didn’t seem sorry at all.

“Hmph,” Victor said. “This is what you get up to out here, Amy? Painting fish and dating smarmy white men? Somehow, I still expected better of you.”

Amy shrank back against Quinn’s side, just a tiny bit, and Quinn decided he no longer cared what Daddy Dearest thought of him. His job was to protect Amy, and that’s what he was there to do. 

“I don’t know that you have any right to expect anything from Amy,” Quinn said, conversationally, trying not to escalate the volume any further. They were receiving weird looks, but no one was staring outright.

“What-!” Victor said. “How dare you, you little-”

Prathiba laid what was clearly supposed to be a calming hand on her husband’s arm, but she was shaken off. Quinn took the pause as an opening.

“You’re her father,” he said, his voice low and serious. He thought of it as his I’m A Dangerous Man voice. It was a warning, in and of itself. “I don’t think good fathers speak to their daughters the way you’re doing right now, especially in front of an audience.”

“She is my daughter and I will speak to her how I see fit,” Victor said, matching Quinn’s volume and menace. 

“Now see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Quinn said. “Because Amy is an incredible woman, and she doesn’t need to be treated this way by anyone, especially someone who’s supposed to care about her. So I suggest you either figure out how to speak to her with respect, or you vacate the premises.”

Victor made a sound of incoherent rage, and turned his attention back to Amy, who had been silent for the entire exchange thus far.

“You’re going to let your so-called boyfriend speak to me this way?” he demanded.

Quinn could feel Amy's shoulders go back, her spine straighten. He squeezed his arm around her, just a bit, trying to tell her without words that he had her back.

“Yes,” Amy said, her head coming up. “I am. And you know what, how dare you? You don’t know the first thing about who I am, you only care about the daughter you wanted me to be. Well, this is the daughter I am, and this is what you’ve got.”

Quinn rubbed her arm encouragingly. He loved her like this, full of fire. 

“Hah! See if I help you with anything, ungrateful child,” Victor said. “I should-”

Quinn cut him off. “Be respectful, or leave,” he said again, and Victor glared at him. Quinn’s eyes were hard, and there wasn’t a trace of his usual sardonic good humor on his mouth. 

“You shame me, and your mother, acting this way,” Victor said, low and vicious. “As though we didn’t give you everything-”

“You didn’t,” Amy said, clutching Quinn as though to give her strength. “And I don’t want your money. You don’t care about me.”

“Amy, _beta,_ of course we care about you,” her mother said gently. “How can you say this?”

“You don’t _know_ me!” she said. 

“Of course we do,” Victor said. “You are a runner-”

“I ran track and field for like a semester,” Amy said.

“You volunteer your time to good works,” her mother said.

“Like what?” Amy asked. “Name a charity I’ve worked with in the past three years! What’s my favorite food? My favorite movie? What size shirt do I wear? What’s my _address?_ ”

Her parents were silent, looking at each other and back at their daughter.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” Quinn said, and by some miracle, they went.

* * *

Amy could feel herself shaking like a leaf against the bulwark of Quinn. She had never imagined speaking to her father that way, but it felt… good. She felt free.

She had thought she wanted her father’s approval, but she understood now that it was immaterial. Her father didn’t know her. His approval didn’t make an ounce of difference to her. And she loved her mother, but she didn’t know her either. 

“You worked with the orca people last summer,” Quinn was saying in her hair. He hadn’t moved away from her since he’d shown up out of nowhere to defend her, like a knight in shining armor. Or, well, a knight in a really nice suit. 

Amy pulled back from him so she could see up into his face. “What?”

“A charity you worked with recently. You worked with the orca people last summer, and with Habitat for Humanity before you moved to Portland. Your favorite food is Cinnabon, you love the weird 1996 Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio, your shirt size is a small, and your address is-”

But Amy cut him off, because she’d already heard what she needed to hear from him. She accomplished this by wrapping her hands around his neck, yanking him down to her level and kissing him soundly.

He went more than willingly, and this kiss was better than the last, because she wasn’t his job and he wasn’t looking out for someone watching them and they both chose to be there, kissing one another.

“Wait,” Quinn said, pulling back. “That’s it? You’re not mad?”

“Are you kidding? I’m furious,” Amy said, not letting do of his neck. “You left without saying _anything,_ Quinn.”

“I know,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I, uh, brought you flowers.”

Amy loosened her grip, letting Quinn back up. “You what?”

“I got you flowers,” he said, awkwardly. “Since it’s your debut, and all.”

“Oh,” she said. “Quinn, I-”

“My name is Jonah,” he said in a rush, as though he was afraid he might stop halfway through the sentence if he paused to think about it. “I thought, since I know so much about you, I ought to- uh.”

Amy watched Quinn in silence, shocked. 

“Dammit,” he said. “I’m not good at this whole, uh, genuine thing. I’m normally more sarcastic. Can I be sarcastic?”

Amy felt a grin tugging at her lips. “Sure,” she said, pulling him back down to her level. “Jonah,” she whispered into his ear. “It’s a nice name.”

He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I felt like I ought to give you one of my secrets, because I didn’t tell you anything about myself,” he said. “And relationships are supposed to be about knowing the other person, or whatever.”

“I have something to show you,” Amy said in response, and Quinn let her lead him by the hand around the corner, past her killer whales, to the next gallery wall over.

And she watched his face as Jonah Quinn took in what was displayed there: a hundred, two hundred, five hundred different sketches of his face, in fragments. His mouth, his jaw, his eyes, his hair, all of it a hundred ways, a thousand separate moments, captured in a patchwork of sketches that only hinted at the face as a whole.

“I didn’t want to give away your face,” she said softly, behind him. “Not the whole thing. But I’ve drawn you so many times, I think I could draw you with my eyes shut.”

“After I left,” Quinn said, “I saw your face every time I closed my eyes.”

Amy touched his shoulder softly, and he turned to her once more, sweeping her into a searing kiss, ignoring all the people around them, the pair totally lost in each other.

* * *

Up in the air vent, Parker spoke into her comm, “I think we ought to give them another minute. Yeah, I get it, we’re late, but I really think they need some more time. _Yes,_ they’re kissing, I can see that.” She rolled her eyes at the disapproving tone of the voice in her earpiece. “That doesn't matter. Did you see the way he made he smile? I want Amy to smile like that all the time. Shut up, Hardison, I know you don’t like Quinn, but I’m overriding you.”

She smiled, unseen, at Amy and her totally-not-fake-anymore boyfriend.

She really was the best mastermind out there.

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

“I like the new art,” Jonah said, coming into Amy's apartment. “Where’d you get it?”

“Parker gave it to me,” Amy said, kissing her boyfriend as he joined her on the couch. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Reminds me of a van Gogh. Come on, you’re just in time for Say Yes to the Dress!”

“The things I let you convince me to do,” he said, rolling his eyes. Amy poked him.

“Shut up, you know you love it,” she said, curling up in his arms. “Ooh, look, this one has her new sister-in-law coming with her!”

“Dinner says the sister-in-law is a total bitch.”

“No bet, it’s your turn to cook tonight.”

Jonah kissed her neck. “Worth a shot.”

“I’m not a sucker,” Amy grinned back at him. “Now shut up, it’s starting.”

* * *

“Prathiba, what is the meaning of this?” Victor asked. “Surely you haven’t replaced my van Gogh with this painting of a- a technicolor fish?”

**Author's Note:**

> Tipsy kiss: the drinking occurs earlier in the evening. Amy has some gin, is slightly tipsy, and is mostly sober by the time they arrive at the bar, in which the kiss occurs. Both she and Quinn are into it.
> 
> Disapproving parent: Victor Palavi is a mean, self-centered man who attempts to control Amy through money and is openly derogatory towards her artwork and life choices (including Quinn). He is also shown to be controlling over his wife, Amy's mom. Amy tells him off, and Quinn sends him packing. Unpleasant, but ultimately cathartic and freeing for Amy. 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed this fic! I treasure all kudos and comments 💕


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